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COLLEGE EDUO^^TION 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



LITERARY SOCIETIES 



OF THE 



i 



tltttfe ii«tlt«tt* 






HIR^JSl, OHIO. 

JUNE 14, 18 67. 



By HOJY, JAMES AT GARFIELD. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST, 



C L E V ElTAjSI D : 

FAIRBANKS, BENEDICT & CO., PEINTERS, HERALB OFFICE. 

1867. 






G= 



A.DDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the Literary Societies: — I congratulate you 
on the significant fact that the questions which most vitally 
concern your personal work, are, at this'tinie, rapidly becom- 
ing, indeed have already become, questions of first importance 
to the whole nation. In ordinary times, we could scarcely 
find two subjects wider apart than the meditations of a 
school' boy, when he asks what he shall do with himself, and 
how he shall do it — and the forecastings of a great nation, 
when it studies the laws of its own life and endeavors to 
solve the problem of its destiny. But now, there is more 
than a resemblance between the nation's work and yours. 
If the two are not identical, they at least bear the relation 
of the whole to a part. 

The nation, having passed through the childhood of its 
history, and being about to enter upon a new life, based on 
a fuller recognition of the rights of manhood, has discovered 
that liberty can be safe, only when the suffrage is illumin- 
ated by education. It is now perceived that the life and 
light of a nation are inseparable. Hence, the Federal Gov- 
ernment has established a National Department of Educa- 
tion, for the purpose of teaching young men and women 
how to be good citizens. 

You, young gentlemen, having passed the limits of child- 
hood, and being about to enter the larger world of manhood, 
with its manifold struggles and aspirations, are now confront- 
ed with the question, "What must I do to fit myself most 
completely, not for being a citizen merely, but for being ' all 
that doth become a man,' living in the full light- of the 
Christian civilization of America?" Your disenthralled and 
victorious country asks you t© be educated for her sake, 



and the noblest aspirations of your being still more impera- 
tively ask it for your own sake. 

In the hope that I may aid you in solving some of these 
questions — I have chosen for my theme on this occasion : 
The Course of Study in" American Colleges — and its 

adaptation to the avants of our time. 

Before examining any course of study, we should clearly 
apprehend the objects to be obtained by a liberal education. 

In general, it may be said that the purpose of all study 
is two-fold : to discipline our faculties, and to acqiiire knowl- 
edge for the duties of life. It is happily provided in the 
constitution of the human mind, that the labor by which 
knowledge is acquired, is the only means of disciplining the 
powers. It may be stated as a general rule, that if we 
compel ourselves to learn what we ought to know, and use 
it when learned, our discipline will take care of itself. 

Let us then inquire what kinds of knowledge should be the 
objects of a liberal education? Without adopting in full the 
classification of Herbert Spencer, it will be sufficiently com- 
prehensive for my present purpose, to propose the following 
kinds of knowledge, stated in the order of their importance. 

First. That knowledge which is necessary^ for the full 
development of our bodies and the preservation of our health. 

/Second. The knowledge of those principles by which the 
useful arts and industries are carried on and improved. 

Third. That knowledge which is necessary to a full com- 
prehension of our rights and duties as citizens. 

Fourth. A knowledge of the intellectual, moral, religious 
and esthetic nature of man — and his relations to nature and 
civilization. 

Jbifth. That special and thorough knowledge which is 
requisite for the particular profession or pursuit which a 
man may choose as his life work, after he has completed 
his college studies. 

In brief, the student should study hiinself, his relations to 
society ^to nature, and to art — and above all, in all, and through 
atl these, he should study the relations of himself, society, nature 
and art, to God, the Author of them all. Of course, it is not 
possible, nor is it desirable to confine tJie course of develop- 



inent exclusively to this order — for truth is so related and 
correlated, that no department of her realm is wholly isola- 
ted. We cannot learn much that pertains to the industry of 
society, without learning something of the material world, 
and the laws which govern it. We cannot study nature 
profoundly without bringing ourselves into communion with 
the spirit of art, which pervades and fills the universe. But 
what I suggest is, that we should make the course of study 
conform generally, to the order here indicated ; that the 
student shall first study what he needs most to know ; that 
the order of his needs shall be the order of his work. Now 
it will not be denied, that from the day that the child's foot 
first presses the green turf, till the day when, an old man, he 
is ready to be laid under it — there is not an hour in which 
he does not need to know a thousand things in relation to his 
body, " what he shall eat, what he shall drink, and where- 
withal he shall be clothed." Unprovided with that instinct 
which enables the lower animals to reject the noxioiis, and 
select the nutritive — man must learn even the most primary 
truth that ministers to his self-preservation. If parents were 
themselves sufficiently educated, most of this knowledge 
might be acquired at the mother's knee — but by the strangest 
perversion, and misdirection of the educational forces, these 
most essential elements of knowledge are more neglected 
than any other. 

School committees would summarily dismiss the teacher 
who should have the good sense and courage to spend three 
days of each week, with her pupils, in the fields and woods 
teaching them the names, peculiarities, and uses of rocks, trees, 
plants, and flowers, and the beautiful story of the animals, 
birds and insects, which fill the world with life and beauty. 
They will applaud her for continuing to perpetrate that unde- 
fended and indefensible outrage upon the laws of physical 
and intellectual life, which keeps a little child sitting in 
silence, in a vain attempt to hold his mind to the words of a 
printed page for six hours in a day. Herod was merciful? 
for he finished his slaughter of the innocents in a day ; 
but this practice kills by the savagery of slow torture. — 
And what is the child directed to study? Besides the mass, 
of words and sentences which he is compelled to memorize, 



6 

Hot one syllable ot whicli he understands, at eight or ten 
years of age he is set to work on English Grammar — one of 
the most complex, intricate, and metaphysical of studies, 
requiring a mind of much muscle and discipline to master it. 
Thus are squandered — nay, far worse than squandered — 
those thrice-precious years, when the child is all ear and 
eye, when its eager spirit, with insatiable curiosity, hungers 
and thirsts to know the what and the why of the world and 
its wonderful furniture. We silence its sweet clamor, by 
cramming its hungry mind with words, words — empty, 
meaningless words. It asks bread, and we give it a stone. 
It is to me a perpetual wonder that any child's love of knowl- 
edge survives the outrages of the school-house. It would 
be foreign from my present purpose, to consider farther the 
subject of primary education — but it is worthy your profound - 
est thought, for "out of it are the issues of life.'' That man 
will be a benefactor of his race, who shall teach us how to 
manage rightly, the first years of a child's education. I, for 
one, declare, that no child of mine shall ever be com- 
pelled to study one hour, or to learn even the English alpha- 
bet, before he has deposited under his skin, at least, seven 
years of muscle and bone. 

What ai*e our seminaries and colleges accomplishing in 
the way of teaching the laws of life and physical well- 
being? I should scarcely wrong them, were I to answer, 
nothing; absolutely nothing. The few recitations which 
some of the colleges require, in Anatomy and Physiology, 
unfold but the alphabet of those subjects. The emphasis 
of college culture does not fall there. The graduate has 
learned the Latin of the old maxim, " mens sana in eorpore 
sano^'' but how to strengthen the mind by the preservation 
of the body, he has never learned. He can read you in Xeno- 
phon's best Attic Greek, that Apollo flayed the unhappy 
Marsyas and hanged up his skin as a trophy, but he has 
never examined the wonderful texture of his own skin, nor 
the laws by which he may preserve it. He would blush, 
were he to mistake the place of a Greek accent, or put the 
ictus on the second syllable of Eolus ; but the whole circle of 
the " Hberaliuni artium^'' so pompously referred to in his 
diploma of graduation may not have taught him, as I can 



testify in an instance personally known to me, whether the 
jejunum, is a bone or the humerus an intestine. Every hour 
of study consumes a portion of his muscular and vital force. 
Every tissue of his body requires its appropriate nourishment, 
the elements of which are found in abundance in the various 
products of nature ; but he has never inquired where he shall 
find the phosphates and carbonates of lime for his bones — albu- 
men and fibrin for his blood, and phosphorus ior his brain. 
His Chemistry, Mineralogy, Botany, Anatomy and Physiol- 
ogy, if thoroughly studied, would give all this knowl- 
edge, but he has been intent on things remote and foreign— 
and has given but little heed to those matters which so 
nearly concern the chief functions of life. But the student 
should not be blamed. The great men of history have set 
him the example. Copernicus discovered and announced the 
true theory of the solar system, a hundred years before the 
circulation of the blood was known. Though, from the heart 
to the surface, and from the surface back to the heart of every 
man of the race, some twenty pounds of blood had made 
the circuit, once every three minutes, yet men were looking 
so steadily away from themselves, that they did not observe 
the wonderful fact. His habit of thought has developed 
itself in all the courses of College study. 

In the next place, I inquire, what kinds of knowledge are 
necessary for carrying on and improving the useful arts and 
industries of civilized life ? I am well aware of the current 
notion, that these muscular arts should stay in the fields and 
shops, and not invade the sanctuaries of learning. A finished 
education is supposed to consist mainly of literary culture. 
The story of the forges of the Cyclops, where the thunder- 
bolts of Jove were fashioned, is supposed to adorn elegant 
scholarship more gracefully, than those sturdy truths which 
are preaching to this generation in the wonders of the mine, 
in the fire of the furnace, in the clang of the iron mills, and 
the other innumerable industries which , more than all other 
human agencies, have made our civilization what it is, and 
are destined to achieve wonders yet undreamed of This 
generation is beginning to understand that education should 
not be forever divorced from industry; that the highest 
results can be reached only when science guides the hand 



of labor. With what eagerness and alacrity is industry 
seizing every truth of science and putting it in liarnoss ! 
A few years ago, Bessemer, of England, studying the nice 
affinities between carbon and the metals, discovered that a 
slight change of combination would produce a metal posses- I 
sing the ductility of iron and the compactness of steel, and 
which would cost but little more than common iron. One 
rail of this metal will outlast fifteen of the iron rails now 
in use. Millions of capital are already invested to utilize 
this thought of Bessemev's, which must soon revolutionize 
the iron manufacture of the world. 

Another example: The late war raised the price of 
cotton, and paper made of cotton rags. It was found that 
good paper could be manufactured from the fiber of soft 
wood, but it was expensive and difficult to reduce to a pulp, 
without chopping the fiber in pieces. A Yankee mechanic, 
who had learned in the science of vegetable anatomy, that a 
billet of wood was composed of millions of hollow cylinders, 
many o± them so small that only the microscope could reveal 
them ; and having learned also, the penetrative and exjaansive 
power of steam — wedded these two truths, in an ex- 
periment, which, if exhibited to Socrates, would have been 
declared a miracle from the gods. The experiment was very 
simple. Putting his block of wood in a strong box, he forced 
into it a volume of superheated steam which made its way 
into the minutest pore and cell of the wood. Then through 
a trap-door suddenly oj)ened the block was tossed out. The 
outside pressure being removed, the expanding steam instant- 
ly burst every one of the million tubes ; every vegetable flue 
collapsed, and his block of wood lay before him a mass of 
fleecy fiber, more delicate than the hand of man could make it. 

Machinery is the chief implement with which civilization 
does its work; but the science of mechanics is impossible 
without mathematics. 

But for her mineral resources, England would be only 
the hunting park of Europe, and it is believed that her day 
of greatness will terminate when her coal fields are exhaust' 
ed. Our mineral wealth is a thousand times greater than hers, 
and yet, without the knowledge of Geology, Mineralogy, 
Metallurgy, and Chemistry our mines could be of but little 



9 

Value. Without a knowledge of Astronomy, commerce oil 
the sea is impossible, and now at last, it is being discovered 
that the greatest of all our industries, the Agricultural, in 
which three-fourths of all our population are engaged, must 
call science to its aid, if it would keep up with the demands 
of civilization. I need not enumerate the extent and variety 
of knowledge, scientific and practical, which a farmer 
needs in order to reach the full hight and scope of his noble 
calling. And what has our American system of education 
done for this controlling majority of the people? I can best 
answer that question with a single fact. Notwithstanding 
there are in the United States 120,000 common schools, and 
7,000 academies and seminaries; notwithstanding, there 
are 275 colleges where young men may be graduated as 
Bachelors and Masters of the liberal arts, yet in all these, 
the people of the United States have found so little being 
done, or likely to be done to educate men for the work of 
agriculture, that they have demanded, and at last have 
secured from their political servants in Congress, an ap- 
propriation sufficient to build and maintain, in each State 
of the Union, a college for the education of Farmers. This 
great outlay would have been totally unnecessary, but for 
the stupid and criminal neglect of College, Academic, and 
Common School Boards of Education to furnish that which 
the wants of the people require. The scholar and the worker 
must join hands, if both would be successful, 

I next ask, what studies are necessary, to teach our young 
men and women the history and spirit of our government , 
and their rights and duties as citizens ? There is not now 
and there never was on this earth a people who have had 
so many and weighty reasons for loving their country and 
thanking God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, 
as our own. And yet, seven years ago, there was probably 
less strong, earnest, open love of country in the United 
States than in any other nation of Christendom. It is true, 
that the gulf of anarchy and ruin into which treason 
threatened to plunge us, startled the nation as by an electric 
shock, and galvanized into life its dormant and dying patriot- 
ism. But how came it dormant and dying ? I do not hesi- 



io 

tate to affirm that ono of the chief causes was our defective 
system of education. Seven years ago, there was scarcely 
an American college in which more than four weeks out of 
the four years' course, were devoted to studying the govern- 
ment and history of the United States. For this defect of our 
Educational system I have neither respect nor toleration. — 
It is far inferior to that of Persia three thousand years ago. 
The uncultivated tribes of Greece, Rome, Lybia, and Germa- 
ny surpassed us in this respect. Grecian children were taught 
to reverence and emulate the virtues of their ancestors. Our 
educational forces are so wielded as to teach our children 
to admire most, that which is foreign, and fabulous, and 
dead. I have recently examined the catalogue of a leading 
New England College, in which the Geography and History 
of Greece and Rome are required to be studied five terms ; 
but neither the History nor the Geography of the United 
States are named in the College course, or required as a 
condition of admission. Our American children must know 
all the classic rivers, from the Scamander to the Yellow 
Tiber, must tell you the length of the Appian Way, and of 
the canal over which Horace and Virgil sailed on their 
journey to Brundusium; but he may be crowned with 
Baccalaureate honors without having heard, since his first 
moment of Freshman life, one word concerning the 122,000 
miles of coast and river navigation, the 6000 miles of canal, 
and the 35,000 miles of railroad, which indicate both the 
prosperity and the possibilities of his own country. 

It is well to know the history of those magnificent 
nations, whose origin is lost in fable, and whose epitaphs 
were written a thousand years ago— but if we cannot know 
both, it is far better to study the history of our own nation 
whose origin we can trace to the freest and noblest aspirations 
of the human heart— a nation that was formed from 
hardiest, purest, and most enduring elements of European 
civilization— a nation, that by its faith and courage has dared, 
and accomplished more for the human race, in a single century, 
than Europe accomplished in the first thousand years of the 
Christian Era. The New England township was the type 
after which our Federal Government was modeled ; yet it 
would be rare to find a College student who can make a 



11 

jomprehensive and intelligible statement of the municipal 
organization of the township in which he was born, and tell 
^ou by what officers its legislative, judicial and executive 
'unctions are administered. One half of the time which is 
low almost wholly wasted, in district schools, on English 
jrrammar, attempted at too early an age, would be sufficient 
io teach our children to love the Republic, and to become 
its loyal and life-long supporters. After the bloody baptism 
from which the nation has arisen to a higher and nobler life, 
f this shameful defect in our system of education be not 
speedily remedied, we shall deserve the infinite contempt of 
\iture generations. I insist that it should be made an 
indispensable condition of graduation in every American 
Dollege, that the student must understand the history of this 
3ontinent since its discovery by Europeans, the origin and 
tiistory of the United States, its constitution of government, 
the struggles through which it has passed, and the rights 
md duties of citizei^s who are to determine its destiny and 
share its glory. 

Having thus gained the knowledge which is necessary to 
life, health, industry, and citizenship, the student is prepared 
to enter a wider and grander field of thought. If he desires 
that large and liberal culture which will call into activity 
ill his powers, and make the most of the material God has 
^iven him, he must study deeply and earnestly the intellec. 
tual, the moral, the religious and the esthetic nature of man ; 
bis relations to nature, to civilization, past and present ; and 
above all, his relations to God. These should occupy, nearly, 
if not fully, half the time of his college course. In connection 
with the philosophy of the mind, he should study logic, the 
pure mathematics, and the general laws of thought. In con- 
nection with moral philosophy he should study political and 
social ethics, a science so little known either in Colleges or 
Congresses. Prominent among all the rest, should be his 
study of the wonderful history of the human race, in its 
slow and toilsome march across the centuries — now, buried 
in ignorance, superstition and crime ; now rising to the sublim. 
ity of heroism and catohing a glimpse of a better destiny ; 
now turning remorselessly away from, and leaving to perish, 
empires and civilizations in which it had invested its faith, 



12 

and courage and boundless energy for a thousand years, am 
plunging into the forests of Germany, Gaul and Britain, t( 
build for itself new empires, better fitted for its new aspira 
tions; and at last, crossing three thousand miles of unknowi 
sea, and building in the wilderness of a new hemisphere, its 
latest and proudest monuments. To know this as it onghl 
to be known, requires not only a knowledge of general his' 
tory, but a thorough understanding of such works as Guizot's 
"History of Civilization," and Draper's " Intellectual De 
velopment of Europe," and also the rich literature of ancient 
and modern nations. 

Of course our colleges cannot be expected to lead the stu 
dent through all the paths of this great field of learning, but 
they should at least point out its boundaries and let him taste 
a few clusters from its richest vines. 

Finally, in rounding np the measure of his work, the stu 
dent should crown his education with that esthetic culture 
which will unfold to him the delights of nature and art 
and make his mind and heart a fit temple where the immortal 
spirit of Beauty may dwell forever. 

While acquiring this class of knowledge, the student is on 
a perpetual voyage of discovery — searching what he is and 
what he may become — how he is related to the universe, and 
how the harmonies of the outer world respond to the voice 
within him. — It is in this range of study that he learns most 
fully his own tastes and aptitudes — and generally deter- 
mines what his work in life shall be. 

The last item in the classification I have suggested, that 
special knowledge which is necessary to fit a man for the 
particular profession or calling he may adopt, I can not 
discuss here, as it lies outside the field of general education— 
but I will make one suggestion to any of the young gen- 
tlemen before me who may intend to choose, as his life-work, 
some one of the learned professions. You will make a fatal 
mistake if you make only the same preparations which youi 
predecessors made fifty or even ten years ago. Each gen- 
eration must have a higher cultivation than the preceding 
one, in order to be equally successful — and each must be edu- 
cated for his own times. If you become a lawyei-, you must 
remember that the science of law is not fixed like geometry. 



13 

ut is a growth which keeps pace with the progress of society, 
'he developments of the late war will make it necessary to 
3write many of the leading chapters of International and 
[aritime law. The destruction of slavery and the enfran- 
bisement ot 4,000,000 of colored men will almost revolutionize 
imerican Jurisprudence. If Webster were now at the bar, 
1 the full glory of his strength, he would be compelled to 
^construct the whole fabric of his legal learning. Similar 
hanges are occurring both in the medical and military profes- 
ons. Ten years hence the young surgeon will hardly ven- 
ire to open an office till he has studied, thoroughly, the 
ledical and surgical history of the late war. Since the ex- 
erience at Sumter and Wagner, no nation will again build 
)rtifications of costly masonry, for they have learned that 
irth-works are not only cheaper,but a better defense against 
rtillery. The text books on military engineei'ing must be 
3-written. Our Spencer Rifle and the Prussian Needle-gun, 
ave revolutionized both the manufacture and the manual of 
rms — and no great battle will ever again be fought with 
luzzle-loading muskets. Napoleon at the head of his Old 
ruard could to-day win no Austerlitz, till he had read the 
lilitary history of the last six years. 

It may pex'haps be thought that the suggestion I have made 
jncerning the professions will not apply to the work of 
le Christian minister whose principal text-book is a divine 
tid perfect revelation ; but in my judgment, the remark 
pplies to the clerical profession with even more force 
lan to any other. There is no department of his duties in 
hich he does not need the fullest and the latest knowl- 
ige. — He is pledged to the defense of Revelation and Re- 
gion ; — but it will not avail him to be able to answer the 
bjections of Hume and Voltaire. The arguments of Paley 
^ere not written to answer the skepticisms of to-day. His 
Natural Theology," is now less valuable than Hugh Miller's 
Footprints of the Creator,^'' or Guyot's Lectures on" Earth 
ud Man." The men and women of to-day know but little 
nd care less about the thousand abstract questions of po- 
miic Theology which puzzled the heads and wearied the 
earts of our Puritan fathers and mothers. That minister will 



u 

make, and he deserves to make, a miserable failure, who at- 
tempts to feed hungry hearts on the dead dogmas of the 
past. More than that of any other man it is his duty to 
march abreast with the advanced thinkers of his time, and bo 
not only a learner, but a teacher of its science, its literature, 
and its criticism. 

But I return to the main question before me. Having en- 
deavored to state what kinds of knowledge should be the 
objects of a liberal education, I shall next inquire how well 
the course of study in American Colleges is adapted to the 
attainment of these objects. In discussing this question, I 
do not forget that he is deemed a rash and imprudent man 
who invades with susjgestions of change these venerable 
sanctuaiies of learning. Let him venture to suggest that 
much of the wisdom there taught is foolishness, and he 
may hear from the college chapels of the land, in good Vir. 
gilian hexameter, the warning cry, Prociil 0! procul este 
profani! Happy for him if the whole body of alumni do 
not with equal pedantry respond in Horatian verse, " Fenum 
hahet in cornu ; longe fugeP But I protest that a friend of 
American education may suggest changes in our College 
studies without commiting profanation or carrying hay on his 
horns. Our colleges have done, and are doing, a noble work, 
for which they deserve the thanks of the nation, but he is 
not their enemy who suggests that they ought to do much 
better. As an Alumnus of one which I shall always reverence 
— and as a friend of all — I will venture to discuss the work 
they are doing. I have examined some twenty catalogues of 
Eastern, Western, and Southern Colleges, and find the subjects 
taught, and the relative time given to each about the same 
in all. The chief difierence is in the quantity of work requi- 
red. I will take Harvard as a repi'esentative, it being the 
oldest of our colleges — and certainly requiring as much 
study as any other. Remembering that the standard by 
which we measure a student's work for one day is three re- 
citations of one hour each, and that his year usually con- 
sists of three terms of thirteen or fourteen weeks each, — for 
convenience sake I will divide the work required to admit 
him to college, and after four years to graduate him, into 
two classes ; 



16 

1st. That which Tjelongs to the study of Latin and Greek, 
— and 2d, that which does not. 

Now from the annual catalogue of Harvard for 1866-67 
(page 26) I find that the candidate for admission to the 
Freshman class must be examined in what will require the 
study of eight terms in Latin, six in Greek, one in Ancient 
Geography, one in Grecian History and one in Roman His- 
tory, which make seventeen terms in the studies of class first. 
Under the head of cJass second, the candidate is required to 
be examined in Reading, in common school Arithmetic 
and Geography, in one term's study of Al2:ebra, and one 
term of Geometry. English Grammar is not mentioned. 

Thus after studying the elementary branches which are 
taught in all our common schools, it requires about two years 
and a half of study to enter a college ; and of that study 
seventeen parts are devoted to the Language, History and 
Geography of Greece and Rome, and two parts to all other 
subjects ! 

Reducing the Harvard year to the usual division of three 
terms, the analysis of the work will be found as follows : not 
less than nine terms of Latin — there may be twelve if the 
student chooses it ; not less than six terms of Greek — but 
twelve if he chooses it ; and he may elect, in addition, three 
terms in Roman History. With the average .of three reci. 
tations per day, and three terms per year, we may say that 
the whole work of College study consists of thirty-six parts. 
Not less than fifteen of these must be devoted to Latin and 
Greek, and not more than twenty-one to all other subjects. 
If the student chooses he may devote twenty-four parts to 
Latin and Greek, and twelve to all other subjects. Taking 
the whole six and a half years of preparatory and college 
study — we find that to earn a Bachelor's diploma at Har- 
vard, a young man, after leaving the district school, must 
devote four-sevenths of all his labor to Greece and Rome. 

Now what do we find in our second, or un-classical list ? It 
is chiefly remarkable for what it does not contain. In the 
whole programme of study, lectures included, no mention 
whatever is made of Physical Geography, of Anatomy, 
Physiology, or the general History of the United States. A 
few weeks of Senior year given to Guizot and the History of 
the Federal Constitution, and a Lecture on General History 



16 

once a week during half that year, furnishes all that the 
graduate of Harvard is required to know of his own country 
and the living nations of the earth. 

He must apply years of arduous labor to the history, ora- 
tory and poetry of Greece and Rome, but he is not required 
to cull a single flower from the rich fields of our own Litera- 
ture. English Litei-ature is not named in the curriculum, 
except that the student may, if he chooses, attend a few gen- 
eral lectures on modern literature. 

Such are some of the facts in reference to the educational 
work of our most venerable college, where there is probably 
concentrated more general and special culture than at any 
other in America. 

I think it probable that in some of the colleges the 
proportion of Latin and Greek to other studies may be less^ 
but I believe that in none of them the preparatory amd 
college work devoted to these two languages is less than half 
of all the work required. 

Now the bare statement of this tact should challenge and 
must challenge the attention of every thoughtful man in the 
Nation. No wonder that men are demanding, with an 
earnestness that will not be repressed, to know how it 
happens, and why it happens, that, placing in one end of the 
balance all the mathematical studies, all the physical 
sciences, in their recent rapid developments ; all the study of 
the human mind and the laws of thought ; all principles of 
political economy and social science, which underlie the 
commerce and industry and shape the legislation of nations • 
the history of our own nation — its constitution of government 
and its great industrial interests ; all the literature and 
history of modern civilization — placing all this, I say, in one 
end of the balance, they kick the beam when Greece and 
Rome are placed in the other. I hasten to say that I make 
no attack upon the study of these noble languages as an 
important and necessary part of a liberal education. I have 
no sympathy with that sentiment which would drive them 
from Academy and College as a part of the dead past that 
should bury its dead. It is the proportion of work given 
to them of which I complain. 

These studies hold their relative rank in obedience to the 



11 

tyranny of custom. Each new college is modeled after the 
older ones, and all in America have been patterned on an 
humble scale after the universities of Europe. The promi- 
nence given to Latin and Greek at the founding of these 
Universities Avas a matter of inexorable necessity. The 
continuance of the same, or anywhere near the same relative 
prominence to-day, is both unnecessary and indefensible. I 
appeal to history for the jn'oof of these assertions. 

Near the close of the fifth century wc date the 
beginning of those dai'k ages which enveloped the whole 
world for a thousand years. The human race seemed 
stricken with intellectual paralysis. The noble language of 
the Caesars, corrupted by a hundred barbarous dialects, 
ceased to be a living tongue long before the modern languages 
of Europe had been reduced to writing. 

In Italy the Latin died in the 10th century, but the 
oldest document known to exist in Italian was not written till 
the year 1200. Italian did not really take its j^lace in the 
family of written languages till a century later, when it was 
crystallized into form and made immortal by the genius of 
Dante and Petrarch. 

The Spanish was not a written language till the year 1200, 
and was scarcely known to Europe till Cervantes convulsed 
the world with laughter in 1605. 

The Latin ceased to be spoken by the people of France 
in the 10th century, and French was not a written language 
till the beginning of the 14th century. Pascal, who died in 
1662, is called the Father of modern French prose. 

The German as a literary language dates from I^uther, who 
died in 1546. It was one of his mortal sins against Rome 
that he translated the Bible into the uncouth and vulgar 
tongue of Germany. 

Our own language is also of recent origin. Richard I, of 
England, who died in 1199, never spoke a word of English 
in his life. Our mother tongue was never heard in an 
Knglish court of justice till 1362. The statutes of England 
were not written in English till three years before Columbus 
landed in the New World. No philologist dates modern 
English farther back than 1600. Sir Thomas More (the 
luthor of "Utopia") who died in 1535, was the father of 
English prose. 



18 

The dark ages were the sleep of the world, while the 
languages of the modern world were being born out of 
chaos. 

The first glimmer of dawn was in the 12th century, when in 
Paris, Oxford, and other parts of Europe, Universities were 
established. The 15th century was spent in saving the 
remnants of classic learning which had been locked up in the 
cells of monks ; the Greek at Constantinople, and the La^in 
in the cloisters of Western Europe. 

During the first three hundred years of the life of the 
older Universities it is almost literally true that no modern 
tongue had become a written language. The learning of Eu- 
rope was in Latin and Greek. In order to study either science 
or literature these languages must fii'st be learned. European 
writers continued to use Latin long after the modern lan- 
guages were fully established. Even Milton's great " De- 
fense of the People of England" was written in Latin — as 
were also the ^* Frindpia^'' and other scientific works of 
Newton, who died in 1727. 

The pride of learned corporations, the spirit of exclusive- 
ness among learned men, and their want of sympathy with 
the mass of the people, united to maintain Latin as the lau. 
guage of learning long after its use was defensible. 

Now mark the contrast between the objects and demands 
of education when the European Universities were founded 
— or even when Harvard was founded — and its demands at 
the present time. We have a family of modern languages 
almost equal in force and perfection to the classic tongues, and 
a modern literature, which, if less perfect in esthetic form 
than the ancient, is immeasurably richer in truth, and is filled 
with the noblest and bravest thoughts of the world. When 
the Universities were founded, modern science was not 
born. Scarcely a generation has passed since then Avithout 
adding some new science to the circle of knowledge. As late 
as 1809 the Edinburg Review declared that " lectures upon 
Political Economy would be discouraged in Oxford, probably 
despised, probably not permitted," At a much later date, 
there was no text-book in the United States on that subject. 
The claims of Latin and Greek to the chief place in the cur- 
riculum, have been gradually growing less, and the impor- 
tance of other knowledge has been constantly increasing ; 



19 

but the colleges have generally opjjosed all innovations and 
still cling to the old ways Avith stubborn conservatism. Some 
concessions, however, have been made to the necessities of 
the times, both in Europe and America. Harvard would 
hardly venture to enforce its law (which prevailed long 
after Cotton Mather's day,) forbidding its students to ?peak 
English within the College limits, under any pretext whatever ; 
and British Cantabs have had their task of composing hex" 
ameters in bad Latin reduced by a few thousand verses during 
the last century. 

It costs me a struggle to say any thinsr on this subject 
which may be regarded with favor by those who would reject 
the classics altogether, for I have read them and taught them 
with a pleasure and relish which few other pursuits have ever 
afforded me. But I am persuaded that their supporters must 
soon submit to a readjustment of their relations to College 
study, or they may be driven from the course altogether- 
There are most weighty reasons why Latin and Greek should 
be retained as part of a liberal education. He who would 
study our own language profoundly must not forget that 
nearly thirty per cent, of its words are of Latin origin — that 
the study of Latin is the study of Universal Grammar, and 
renders the acquisition of any modern language an easy task, 
and is indispensable to the teacher of Language and Litera- 
ture, and to other professional men. 

Greek is, perhaps, the most perfect instrument of thought 
ever invented by man, and its literature has never been 
equalled in purity of style and boldness of expression. Asa 
means of intellectual discipline its value can hardly be over- 
estimated. To take a long and complicated sentence in Greek 
— to study each word in its meanings, inflections and rela- 
tions, and to build up in the mind out of these polished ma- 
teiials, a sentence, perfect as a temple, and filled with Greek 
thought which has dwelt there two thousand 5' ears, is almost 
an act of creation; it calls into activity all the faculties of the 
mind. 

That the Christian oracles have come down to us in Greek, 
will make Greek scholars forever a necessity. 

These studies, then, should not be neglected ; they should 
neither devour nor be devoured. I insist they can be made 
more valuable and at the same time less prominent than they 



20 

how are. A large part of the labor now bestowed upon tlieitl 
is devoted, not to learning the genius and spirit of the lan- 
guage, but is more than wasted on pedantic trifles. More 
than half a century ago, in his essay entitled "Too much Latin 
and Greek," Sydney Smith lashed this trifling as it deserves. 
Speaking of Classical Englishmen, he says : " Their minds 
have become so completely possessed by exaggerated notions 
of classical learning, that they have not been able, in the 
great school of the world, to form any other notion of real 
greatness. Attend too, to the public ieelings— look to all 
the terms of applause. A learned man !— a scholar !— a man 
of erudition ! Upon Avhom are these epitaphs of approba- 
tion bestowed ? Are they given to men acquainted with the 
^science of government ? thoroughly masters of the geographi- 
cal and commercial relations of Europe? to men who know 
the properties of bodies and their action upon each other ? 
No; this is not learning: it is Chemistry, or Political Econ- 
omy—not learning. The distinguishing abstract term, the 
epithet of Scholar, is reserved for him who writes on the 
^olic reduplication, and is familiar with the Sylburgian 
method of arranging defectives in w and (uui. * * * The 
object of the young Englishman is not to reason, to imagine 
or to invent ; but to conjugate, decline and derive. The sit- 
uations of imaginary glory which he draws for himself, are 
the detection of an anapast in the wrong jjlace, or the resto- 
ration of a dative case which Cranzius had passed over, and 
the never dying Ernesti failed to observe. If a young clas- 
sic of this kind were to meet the greatest chemist, or the 
greatest mechanician, or the most profound political economist 
of his time, in company wdth the greatest Greek scholar, 
would the slighest comparison between them ever cross his 
mind ? would he ever dream that buch men as Adam Smith 
and Lavoisier were equal in dignity of understanding to, or 
of the same utility as, Bentley or Heyne ? We are inclined to 
think, that the feeling excited would be a good deal like that 
which was expressed by Dr. George about the praises of 
the great king of Prussia, who entertained great doubts 
whether the king with all his victories, knew how to conju- 
gate a Greek verb in fx«. " He concludes another essay written 
in 1826 with these words : "If there is anything which fills 
reflecting men with melancholy and regret, it is the waste of 



^1 

iiiortal time, parental money, and puerile happiness, in the 
present method of pursuing Latin and Greek." 

To write verse in these languages — to study elaborate 
theories of the Greek accent — and the ancient pronunciation 
of both Greek and Latin, which no one can ever know he 
has discovered, and which would be utterly valueless if he 
did discover it ; to toil over the innumerable exceptions to 
the arbitrary rules of poetic quantity which few succeed in 
learning and none remember — these, and a thousand other 
similar things which crowd the pages of Zumpt and Ktihner, 
no more constitute a knowledge of the spirit and genius of the 
Greek and Latin languages than counting the number of 
threads to the square inch in a man's coat and the number of 
pegs in his boots, makes us acquainted with his moral and 
intellectual character. The greatest literary monuments of 
Greece existed hundreds of years before the science of Gram- 
mar was born. Plato and Thucydides had a tolerable ac- 
quaintance with the Greek language ; but Crosby goes far 
beyond their depth. 

Our Colleges should require a student to understand 
thoroughly the structure, idioms and spirit of these languages, 
and to be able by the aid of a lexicon to analyze and translate 
them with readiness and elegance. They should give him 
the key to the store-house of ancient literature, that he may 
explore its treasures for himself in after life. This can be 
done in two years less than the usual time, and nearly as well 
as it is now done. 

I am glad to inform you, Young Gentlemen, that the 
Trustees of the Institution in this place, have this day resolved 
that in the course of study to be pursued here, Latin and 
Greek shall not be required after the Freshman year. — 
They must be studied the usual time as a requisite to 
admission, and they may be carried further than Freshman 
year as elective studies ; but in the regular course their places 
will be supplied by some of the studies I have already 
mentioned. Three or four terms in general Literature 
will teach you that the Republic of letters is larger than 
Greece or Rome. The Board of Trustees have been strength- 
ened in the position they have taken, by the fact that a 
similar course for the future has recently been announced by 
the authorities of Harvard TJniversitv. Within the last six 



22 

days I have received a circular from the Secretary of that 
venei-able College, which announces that two-thirds of the 
Latin and Greek are hereafter to be stricken from the list of 
required studies of the college course. 

I rejoice that this movement has begun. .Other colleges 
must follow the example, and the day will not be far distant 
when it shall be the pride of a scholar that he is also a 
worker, and when the worker shall not refuse to become 
a scholar because he despises a trifler. 

I congratulate you that this change does not reduce the 
amount of labor required of you. If it did I should deplore 
it. I beseech you to remember that the genius of success 
is still the genius of labor. If hard work is not another name 
for talent, it is the best possible substitute for it. In the long 
run, the chief difference in men will be found in the amount of 
work they do. Do not trust to what lazy men call the spur 
of the occasion. If you wish to wear spurs in the tournament 
of life, you must buckle them to your own heels before you 
enter the lists. 

Men look with admiring wonder ujDon a great intellectual 
effort, like Webster's reply to Hayne, and seem to think 
that it leaped into life by the inspiration of the moment. 
But if by some intellectual chemistry, we could resolve that 
masterly speech into its several elements of power, and 
trace each to its source, we should find that every constituent 
force had been elaborated twenty years before, it may be in 
some hour of earnest intellectual labor. Occasion may be 
the bugle-call that summons an army to battle, but the blast 
of a bugle cannot ever make soldiers, or win victories. 

And finally, Young Gentlemen, learn to cultivate a wise 
self-reliance, based not on what you hope, but on what you 
perform. It has long been the habit at this institution, if I 
may so speak, to throw young men overboard and let them 
sink or swim. None have yet drowned who were worth 
the saving. I hope the practice will be continued, and that 
you will not rely ujDon outside help for growth or success. 
Give crutches to cripples — but go you forth with brave, true 
hearts, knowing that fortune dwells in your brain and muscle 
—and that labor is the only human symbol of Omnipotence. 



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